1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to improvements in inserting apparatus and more particularly pertains to a new and improved inserting apparatus for inserting a stack of documents consisting of a folded bank statement, an enclosure, and stack of checks into an envelope. Prior to insertion of the stack of documents into the envelope, checks are simultaneously counted and fed to a receiving and stacking station. After a predetermined number of checks have been counted, a bank statement is fed and folded and an enclosure is simultaneously fed to the stack of checks for insertion into the envelope.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In businesses or more particularly financial institutions where checks and statements delineating transactions of the checks are processed, it has been a general practice in the art to employ manual labor to manually count a predetermined number of checks to agree with a predetermined printed number of checks on the statement at which time the statement is folded to be inserted into an envelope along with the checks. Checks are usually withdrawn in bundles corresponding to individual accounts from a check storage drawer. The bundles are mated with their corresponding statements that are usually in a stack to be collated together with the checks. Then the folded statement and checks are usually manually inserted into the envelope, and sometimes, along with an additional enclosure such as an advertisement. Manual labor for insertion of a folded statement, an enclosure, and checks into an envelope has been unsatisfactory due to the expense of labor the tedious manual insertion time consumed and the errors caused by manual counting.
Those concerned with the development of automatic mechanization to accomplish the counting and stacking of checks in addition to folding and stacking of a statement onto a stack of counted checks have long recognized the need for a low cost insertion apparatus to accomplish the tasks of counting, stacking, folding, and insertion of checks and a corresponding statement into an envelope.
There are numerous machines manufactured that count a plurality of documents such as checks or currency; see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,805,825; Sept. 10, 1957. There are also machines in the art that fold a single sheet such as a bank statement into halves or thirds so as to accommodate such prior to insertion into an envelope. In addition, there are machines that insert stacks of items into an envelope such as a prefolded statement and a plurality of checks.
In a patent issued to Hanson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,049,845, Aug. 21, 1962, an inserting apparatus collates into a stack a document from each of two hoppers along with an envelope from a third hopper. Then, a ram inserts the collated documents into the envelope. The inserting apparatus does not count a plurality of documents from any of the hoppers nor does it fold a document in half prior to collation with other documents for insertion into an envelope as does the invention of this application.
Some machines presently manufactured for collating a stack of a plurality of first items such as checks, a second item such as a folded statement, and a third item such as an advertising enclosure are expensive, large complex mechanical machines which can be purchased only by large financial institutions having a high volume of commercial accounts necessitating the utilization of this type of machine. These machines are complex in mechanical operation and require at least one if not more highly skilled trained operators to efficiently and effectively utilize the machine in its designated function.
This invention fills a need for a low cost table top in line inserting apparatus for inserting a stack of documents into an envelope which can be utilized by a single machine operator.